Old South Meeting House

The Old South Meeting House is a Congregationalist Protestant church building located at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1729. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, yearly anniversary meetings were held in the church until 1775. In 1773, 5,000 people met in the Meeting House to debate British taxation and, after the meeting, a group of Patriots raided three tea ships in Boston Harbor in what became known as the "Boston Tea Party". In 1775, the British occupied the Meeting House due to its association with the Patriot cause, and the British gutted the building, filled it with dirt, and used the interior to practice horse riding. The building was almost destroyed during the Great Fire of 1872, and its congregation, which moved away from the surrounding area, established a new church. However, the Meeting House was still frequented by its congregants once a year (on the Sunday before Thanksgiving), and it became a National Historic Landmark in 1960.